DEBUT NOVEL FROM WORLD FAMOUS BALLET DANCER, CARLOS ACOSTA, MAKES THE WATERSTONES ELEVEN
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**Under strict embargo until 20.00 GMT, Monday 14th January 2013**
DEBUT NOVEL FROM WORLD FAMOUS BALLET
DANCER, CARLOS ACOSTA, MAKES THE
WATERSTONES ELEVEN
The debut literary stars of 2013 predicted in the third annual Waterstones Eleven
Pig’s Foot, the debut novel from award-winning dancer and Principal Guest Artist for the Royal Ballet, Carlos
Acosta, has been selected as one of this year’s Waterstones Eleven. He is joined on the list of debuts tipped for
critical and commercial success by French opera director Michel Rostain, whose novel – a fictionalised account of
his grief following the death of his son - won the Prix Goncourt for Debut Fiction in 2011.
Announced this evening (Monday 14th January) at a reception at Waterstones’ flagship store in London’s
Piccadilly, the Waterstones Eleven is seen as an indicator of potential bestsellers and literary prize contenders for
the year ahead. The 2013 team includes: 27-year-old PhD student Hannah Kent, who found herself at the heart
of a six-way global publishing bidding war for her novel, Burial Rites; D.W. Wilson, the recipient of the
University of East Anglia’s inaugural Man Booker Prize Scholarship and winner of the BBC Short Story Award in
2011; award-winning journalist Sathnam Sanghera, whose novel takes inspiration from Arnold Bennett’s classic
The Old Wives’ Tale and tells the story of three generations of a family through the prism of a Wolverhampton
corner shop; and Taiye Selasi, a graduate of both Yale and Oxford, whose path to becoming a writer was
encouraged by Toni Morrison.
Waterstones Managing Director James Daunt said:
‘It is in bookshops - the bricks and mortar kind - that new writers are most easily discovered and championed.
The Waterstones Eleven puts new writing at the forefront of the literary calendar and it has quickly become a
celebration our readers trust. I look forward to reading, discussing and arguing about these books in the months
to come and to following the brilliant writing careers our authors are destined to enjoy.’
Now in its third year, the Waterstones Eleven will build on the huge success of the past two years, which saw the
leading bookseller champion a range of debut titles that went on to dominate bestseller lists and to be longlisted,
shortlisted and even win some of the most highly regarded literary prizes in the world. Notable titles from
previous lists include: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce, the bestselling debut novel of
2012, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize; The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen, which won
The Desmond Elliott Prize in 2012; The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht, winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction
2011; and When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman, one of the top ten bestselling books of 2011.
With authors hailing from six countries around the globe, the eleven books will receive the full and committed
backing of Waterstones branches and booksellers across the UK, as well as support online and through their
loyalty card programme, The Waterstones Card, which reaches 1.5 million readers. The list in full (in
alphabetical order by author):
Pig’s Foot by Carlos Acosta (Bloomsbury, 30th October)
Idiopathy by Sam Byers (Fourth Estate, 25th April)
Y by Marjorie Celona (Faber and Faber, 17th January)
The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence (Hodder & Stoughton, 31st January)
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent (Picador, 29th August)
The Fields by Kevin Maher (Little, Brown, 7th March)
The Son by Michel Rostain (Tinder Press, 23rd May)
The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan (Doubleday Ireland, 27th June)
Marriage Material by Sathnam Sanghera (William Heinemann, 26th September)
Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi (Viking, 4th April)
Ballistics by D.W. Wilson (Bloomsbury, 1st August)
1All authors are available for interview. For further information, interview and image requests please contact
Maura Brickell, Liz Hyder or Anwen Hooson at Riot Communications on 020 3174 0118 or
Maura: maura@riotcommunications.com / 07557 373026
Liz: liz@riotcommunications.com / 07939 372865
Anwen: anwen@riotcommunications.com / 07899 798885
NOTES TO EDITORS
1. The Waterstones Eleven was open to debut literary fiction, first published in the UK in English in 2013.
2. The Waterstones business is the UK’s leading high street bookseller, operating through 288 shops across
the UK and Ireland, employing over 4,000 people. Waterstones is the only national specialist book
retailer of scale in the UK, with the average sized shop merchandising a range of around 30,000
individual books, with 200,000 titles in the largest shop. Waterstones was acquired by A&NN Group, an
investment subsidiary of the family trust associated with international investor and businessman,
Alexander Mamut, from HMV Group PLC on 29th June 2011.
3. Waterstones.com lists over 2 million books and offers free delivery to any UK address or Waterstones
shop.
The Waterstones Eleven in detail:
Pig’s Foot by Carlos Acosta
From Pata de Puerco (Pig’s Foot), a small hamlet of wooden shacks and red earth deep in the Cuban hinterland,
comes a tale of revolution, family secrets, identity and love across three generations. As he sets out to find the lost
village of his ancestors and the meaning of the magical pig’s foot amulet he has inherited, Oscar Kortico’s search
for his country’s hidden history becomes entangled with his search for the truth about himself. Through the
retelling of family stories, we glimpse Cuba’s tumultuous history, from the arrival of slaves, through the war of
independence, to dictatorship and a kind of freedom.
‘A vast, ambitious book with startling language and a beautifully woven story’ - Michael Scott, Waterstones
Swindon
About the author:
Carlos Acosta was born in Havana in 1973 and trained at the National Ballet School of Cuba. He has been a
principal at the English National Ballet, the Houston Ballet, the American Ballet Theatre and the Royal Ballet,
and has danced as a guest artist all over the world, winning numerous international awards. He is also the author
of the autobiography No Way Home. Carlos lives in London.
Idiopathy by Sam Byers
Katherine has given up trying to be happy. 30 years old, stuck in a town and a job she hates, her mounting
cynicism and vicious wit repel the people she wants to attract, and attract the people she knows she should repel.
When Katherine and Daniel, her ex, find that their former friend Nathan has returned from a stint in a
psychiatric ward, they decide to meet to heal old wounds and reaffirm their friendship. But will a reunion end
well? Idiopathy skewers the tangled relationships and unhinged narcissism of a self-obsessed generation.
‘A savagely funny and bracingly true novel about the messes people make of their lives, and of each other’ - Mark
Richards, Commissioning Editor, Fourth Estate
About the author
Sam Byers was born in 1979. He is a graduate of the MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia.
He has published fiction in Granta, Tank, and Blank Pages and regularly reviews books for the TLS. Sam lives in
Norwich.
Y by Marjorie Celona
2Why would a mother abandon her baby? Can this act ever be a sign of love? And if your mother left you on a
doorstep, would you be able to forgive her? Abandoned as a newborn then bounced between foster homes,
Shannon eventually finds stability with Miranda, a single mother with a daughter of her own. But as Shannon
grows, so do her questions.
‘A beautiful story of the resilience of the human spirit, with almost more heartache than it is possible to bear’ -
Jon Howells, PR & Brand Communications Manager, Waterstones
About the author
Marjorie Celona received her Master of Fine Arts degree from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop where she was an
Iowa Arts Fellow and recipient of the Ailene Barger Barnes Prize. Her stories have appeared in Best American
Nonrequired Reading, Glimmer Train and Harvard Review. Born and raised on Vancouver Island, she lives in
Cincinnati, Ohio.
The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence
Alex Woods knows that he hasn’t had the most conventional start in life. He knows that growing up with a
clairvoyant single mother won’t endear him to the local bullies. And he knows that even the most improbable
events can happen – he’s got the scars to prove it. What he doesn’t know yet is that when he meets ill-tempered,
reclusive widower Mr Peterson, he’ll make an unlikely friend, someone who tells him that you only get one shot
in life. So when, aged 17, Alex is stopped at Dover customs with 113 grams of marijuana, an urn full of ashes on
the passenger seat, and an entire nation in uproar, he’s fairly sure he’s done the right thing…
‘A lovely, quirky novel which kept me enthralled from the first page to the last’ - Leilah Skelton, Waterstones
Doncaster
About the author
Gavin Extence was born in 1982 and grew up in Swinehead, Lincolnshire. From the ages of five to 11, he enjoyed
a brief but illustrious career as a chess player, winning numerous national championships and travelling to
Moscow and St Petersburg to pit his wits against the finest young minds in Russia. He won only one game. Gavin
is currently working on his second novel and when he is not writing, enjoys cooking, amateur astronomy and
going to Alton Towers. He lives in Sheffield.
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
Set in Iceland in 1829, Burial Rites re-tells the true story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, who was condemned to death
for her part in the brutal murder of two men. Agnes is sent to wait out the months leading up to her execution on
the farm of district officer Jón Jónsson, whose wife and two daughters are horrified to have a convicted murderess
in their midst. Only Tóti, the young assistant priest appointed as her spiritual guardian, will listen to Agnes’s side
of the story. As the year progresses and the hardships of rural life force everyone to work side by side, the family’s
attitude to Agnes starts to change, until one winter night, she begins her whispered confession to them, and they
realise that all is not as they had assumed.
‘Lyrical, heart-breaking and pitch perfect’ - Paul Baggaley, Publisher, Picador
About the author
Hannah Kent is the co-founder and deputy editor of Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings, and teaches
Creative Writing and English at Flinders University, Melbourne, where she is also completing her PhD. Her
creative and critical writing has appeared in The Big Issue, Australian Book Review , The Wheeler Centre, Kill
Your Darlings and Voiceworks amongst others. Hannah lives in Melbourne, Australia.
The Fields by Kevin Maher
Dublin, 1984: Jim Finnegan is the youngest in his family with five raucous, confident older sisters, a dad who has
become weirdly disengaged from daily life and two best friends at the opposite ends of the spectrum of cool.
Torn between the uncomplicated pleasure of summer night bike rides with his geeky friend Gary, and the lure of
the wild Mozzo, Jim bursts along through life until he meets the local beauty, Saidhbh. Despite his rapidly
blossoming romance with Saidhbh, all is not well in Jim's world: he must battle with a manipulative local priest,
the challenges of life in a tight-knit family and simply growing up.
3‘A brilliant and startling new voice. This is a wonderful novel about an unforgettable Irish adolescence.’ - Kate
Skipper, New Title Buying Manager, Waterstones
About the author
Kevin Maher was born and brought up in Dublin, moving to London in 1994 to begin a career in journalism. He
wrote for The Guardian, The Observer and Time Out, and was film editor of The Face until 2002. For the last
eight years, he has been a feature writer, critic and columnist for The Times. Kevin lives in London.
The Son by Michel Rostain
We first meet Michel 11 days after the death of his son Lion, who was lost suddenly to a virulent strain of
meningitis. Based on the author’s personal journey through grief but told through the eyes of his deceased son,
The Son is a blurring of memoir and fiction. It tackles the very hardest of subjects but resolutely ducks away from
sentimentality and pathos. This is not a book about death; it’s a book about life.
‘An extraordinary story: very brave, very human and truly life-affirming’ - Jane Morpeth, Managing Director,
Headline Publishing
About the author
Born in 1942, Michel Rostain works as an opera stage director, and directed the National Theatre of Quimper
from 1995 to 2008. The Son is his first novel and won the Prix Goncourt for Debut Fiction in 2011. Michel lives
in Arles, France.
The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan
In the aftermath of Ireland’s financial collapse, dangerous tensions surface in an Irish town. As violence flares, the
characters face a battle between public persona and inner desires. Through a chorus of unique voices, each
struggling to tell their own kind of truth, a single authentic tale unfolds to capture the language and spirit of rural
Ireland with uncanny perception.
‘A book to instantly re-read, this beautiful, sparse writing will leave you with goose bumps’ - Emma Herdman,
Assistant Fiction Buyer, Waterstones
About the author
Donal Ryan was born in a village in north Tipperary, a stroll from the shores of Lough Derg. The Spinning Heart
won Best Newcomer and was voted Irish Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2012. Donal lives with his
wife Anne Marie and two children just outside Limerick City.
Marriage Material by Sathnam Sanghera
To Arjan Banga, returning to the Black Country after the unexpected death of his father, his family’s corner shop
represents everything he has tried to leave behind – a lethargic pace of life, insular rituals and ways of thinking.
But when his mother insists on keeping the shop open, he finds himself being dragged back, forced into big
decisions about his imminent marriage back in London and uncovering the history of his broken family. Taking
inspiration from Arnold Bennett’s classic novel The Old Wives’ Tale, Marriage Material tells the story of three
generations of a family through the prism of a Wolverhampton corner shop: a symbol of independence and
integration, but also of darker realities.
‘A witty and brilliantly observed study of social change between the ’60s and today’ - Rik McShane, Head of
Books, Waterstones
About the author
Sathnam Sanghera was born to Punjabi parents in the West Midlands in 1976. After graduating with a first class
degree from Cambridge, Sathnam worked as a columnist and as Chief Feature Writer for the Financial Times. In
2002 he won Young Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards. Sathnam is now a columnist and comment
writer for The Times. His first book, The Boy with the Topknot: A Memoir of Love, Secrets and Lies in
Wolverhampton, was shortlisted for both the 2008 Costa Biography Award and the 2009 PEN/Ackerley Prize
and was named Mind Book of the Year in 2009. Sathnam lives in London.
4Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi
Ghana Must Go is the story of a family, the Sais, whose good life crumbles in one evening: a Ghanaian father,
Kwaku Sai, who becomes a highly respected surgeon in the US only to be disillusioned by a grotesque injustice;
his Nigerian wife, Fola, the beautiful homemaker abandoned in his wake; their eldest son, Olu, determined to
reconstruct the life his father should have had; their twins, seductive Taiwo and acclaimed artist Kehinde, both
brilliant but scarred and flailing; and their youngest, Sadie, jealously in love with her beautiful college friend.
Interweaving the stories of the Sais family in a rich and moving drama of separation and reunion, Ghana Must Go
spans generations and cultures from West Africa to New England, London, New York and back again.
‘Ghana Must Go is an astonishingly assured, heart-breaking debut about family, loss and identity. Taiye is a major
new writing talent.’ - Joanna Prior, Managing Director, Penguin General
About the author
Taiye Selasi was born in London and raised in Boston to parents of Ghanaian and Nigerian origin. She is a
graduate of Yale and Oxford Universities. Her seminal essay Afropolitans was published in the cult magazine LiP
in 2005 and her short story The Sex Lives of African Girls was published in Granta in 2011. Taiye lives in New
York.
Ballistics by D.W. Wilson
It is summer and the Canadian Rockies are on fire. Fleeing the fallout of a relationship gone wrong, Alan West
returns to the small town in the valley where he grew up. There, his grandfather, Cecil, suffers a heart attack and
gives him one last task: he must track down the father he's never known, so that Cecil can make his peace. And so
Alan begins his search for the elusive Jack West, a man who skipped town decades earlier and of whom Cecil has
always refused to speak. The quest will lead him to Archer, an old American soldier who went AWOL into
Canada at the apex of the Vietnam War. Through him Alan learns the stories of Jack, of Cecil, and of Archer's
own daughter Linnea. Together, at the behest of a dying man, they set off on a reckless journey through the
burning mountains. What they find will change all of their lives forever.
‘Tough, tender and, frankly, brilliant, Ballistics swept me off my feet’ - Helen Garnons-Williams, Editorial
Director, Bloomsbury Publishing
About the author
D.W. Wilson was born and raised in the small towns of the Kootenay Valley, British Columbia. He is the
recipient of the University of East Anglia's inaugural Man Booker Prize Scholarship - the most prestigious award
available to students in the MA programme. His stories have appeared in literary magazines across Canada,
Ireland and the United Kingdom, and The Dead Roads won the BBC National Short Story Award in 2011.Once
You Break a Knuckle, his debut story collection, was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. D. W. Wilson lives
in Cambridge.
The 2012 Waterstones Eleven list in full (in alphabetical order by author):
The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan (William Heinemann)
Absolution by Patrick Flanery (Atlantic)
Shelter by Frances Greenslade (Virago)
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach (Fourth Estate)
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey (Headline Review)
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce (Doubleday)
The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen (Chatto & Windus)
Signs of Life by Anna Raverat (Picador)
The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan (Virago)
The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker (Simon & Schuster)
Care of Wooden Floors by Will Wiles (Harper Press)
5The 2011 Waterstones Eleven list in full (in alphabetical order by author):
City of Bohane by Kevin Barry (Jonathan Cape)
The Free World by David Bezmozgis (Viking)
The Registrar’s Manual for Detecting Forced Marriages by Sophie Hardach (Simon & Schuster)
22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson (Fig Tree)
Chinaman by Shehan Karunatilaka (Jonathan Cape)
Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman (Bloomsbury)
The Coincidence Engine by Sam Leith (Bloomsbury)
The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht (Orion)
The Sentimentalists by Johanna Skibsrud (William Heinemann)
The Collaborator by Mirza Waheed (Viking)
When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman (Headline Review)
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